Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is the festival marking the start of a new year in the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. Its celebrations center on family reunion, honoring ancestors, and welcoming good fortune.

Chinese New Year's Eve: The final evening of the traditional Chinese year, often marked by a family reunion dinner. The festival begins with reunion and shared food on its most family-centered night.
Chinese calendar: A lunisolar calendar system used to determine traditional Chinese dates and festivals. Chinese New Year is dated by this calendar rather than by the Gregorian calendar.
Shang dynasty: A Bronze Age Chinese dynasty, conventionally dated from about 1600 to 1046 BCE. Oracle-bone records from this period document early seasonal rites, though not the festival in its present form.
Ancestor veneration in Chinese culture: Ritual practices that honor deceased family members and maintain ties between generations in Chinese traditions. New Year observances may include honoring ancestors alongside welcoming the coming year.
Chunyun: The annual mass migration in China around the Lunar New Year travel period. Family reunions make the holiday a major driver of seasonal travel.
Reunion dinner: A family meal held on Chinese New Year's Eve, bringing relatives together for the holiday. This meal is a central custom of the festival's opening evening.
Lunisolar calendar: A calendar that keeps months aligned with lunar cycles and years approximately aligned with the solar year. Its combination of lunar months and solar-year correction produces the festival's changing Gregorian date.
Han dynasty: A Chinese imperial dynasty that ruled from 206 BCE to 220 CE, with an interregnum from 9 to 23 CE. Han-era calendar reforms and observances helped shape later New Year traditions.
Chinese New Year taboos: Customary prohibitions observed around Chinese New Year, often intended to avoid bad luck or misfortune. Taboos express hopes that the new year will begin without symbolic misfortune.
Chinese diaspora: Communities of people of Chinese origin living outside China and their descendants. Diaspora communities have sustained and adapted New Year traditions around the world.

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